Pitchers get a lot of recognition in these reports, pitching and defense are half of the game. On Tuesday Chad Jenkins and Asher Wojciechowski pitched well to lead their teams to victory. Aaron Sanchez pitched well, Justin Nicolino was OK, but the bullpen lost the Lugnuts game in the ninth. The Las Vegas pitching staff had pitched well during their road trip but once they came back to the sin city, their ERA's have balloooned. Scott Richmond was yesterdays victim.
Offensively, Jake Marisnick and Mike McDade hit their first home runs of the season. Anthony Gose and AJ Jimenez had two run triples as part of a two hit day. Jon Talley stayed hot with three more hits.
Lansing and Dunedin got the pitching and the wins Monday night. As for Las Vegas, never mind!
Only Dunedin (12-2), who lead their North division in the Florida State League were on the win side of things Friday night, continuing what has become a 5 game win streak. The other leader in the Jays farm system is Lansing who lost Friday, but remain on top of the Eastern division of the Midwest League with a 12-3 record. New Hampshire went down Friday morning, sinking to a 6-9 record and now sit third in the Eastern division of the Eastern League. Las Vegas lost, settling into third place of the PCL Pacific South division with a record of 4-12.
Notably, the long ball lumber was largely silent Friday, with Jonathan Diaz of New Hampshire hitting the only round tripper on the farm, a 2 run blast. He was due. His last homer was in August of last year.
The teams with winning records won, and the teams with losing records lost. Lansing got more great pitching and recorded another shutout. Dave Rollins got the start for the Lugnuts. There were many suggested names for that starting spot in Lansing and the selection of Rollins was a bit of a surprise, but the Jays staff know what they are doing. Dunedin had to score eight runs to win as Sean Nolin had an off night.
Chad Jenkins had another bad start and his name, along with Deck McGuire's, has dispappeared from the list for fifth starter in Toronto. New Hampshire were in a deep hole early from which they had little hope of escaping. Las Vegas have had some tough losses this season and yesterdays was another one to add to the list. They tied their game in the top of the ninth and then brought on their best reliever so far this season, Ryoto Igarashi, to hold the lead. He couldn't and the 51's lost again.
Las Vegas came to town and brought their lumber with them, humiliating the crew from Colorado. The Fisher Cats put up just a meow against the Rock Cats. Dunedin did their thing besting Brevard and Lansing’s Lugnuts lost to West Michigan. All in all, the Blue Jay farm boys out hit opponents 43 to 33.
The Blue Jays minor-league squads were 2-2 on the night. As you might guess, in places where the pitching was right good things happened, in other places not so much. Since there's now one full week of the season in the books (okay, 8 days, humor me) , along with tonight's game updates I'll be highlighting those hot and cold starts worthy of comment.